The Sports Illustrated jinx may be alive and well, as the New Orleans Saints learned last week. The Saints’ 10-game winning streak and chatter about QB Drew Brees being the hands-down favorite to win the NFL MVP award prompted the magazine to put Brees on the cover. Well, we all know the peculiar things that happen to athletes or teams that are featured on the magazine’s cover. Most of us say we don’t believe in jinxes, but we are the same folks who avoid walking under ladders or who turn the other way after a black cat crosses our path. But then there is this …

If your buddy in a bar asked you to name the top offensive teams in the NFL, you would probably press the bet, get the stakes as high as you could and then figure out how you were going to spend your winnings. It’s an easy question when you consider the Saints and QB Drew Brees seem to be setting new standards at scoring points while the Rams and Chiefs are as proficient in their own schemes as evidenced by last Monday night’s 115-110 Rams victory. Excuse me, that was the Warriors and Lakers score, but whatever the final tally (54-51), both teams proved they are right up there with New Orleans offensively.

When you hear players and coaches say it takes individuals to make a team, you probably think they are talking about the various personalities who man critical playing positions.But those who are fortunate enough to be around a professional sports franchise know that many anonymous individuals help make up the team. Like Glennon “Silky” Powell, the Saints long-time assistant equipment manager who died last week a few days before his 72nd birthday.

Question: What do you get when a Fried Chicken, two New Orleans City Councilpersons, a Louisiana State legislator, a Jefferson Parish Coroner, a New Orleans music and TV personality and a New Orleans TV sports commentator cross the road?

Answer: You'll have to check it out Thursday night at Politics with a Punch.

After all, with mid-term elections in the air, and footballs flying around the dome, and chicken frying becoming a New Orleans fall festival, and with local politics always percolating and crime in the street always in the news, what’s more is there to do?

Yeah, I watched the Saints get pulverized Sunday by Tulane – or was it Nicholls? - but I wasn’t devastated. Why? Two reasons. Reason One, it was the first game of a long season, and how many times have we seen the better teams at the end of the season sleepwalking in September? In fact, last year the Saints lost their first two games, and Who Dat Nation was about to second-line off the Crescent City Connection when the team rocketed back into contention.

The Times Picayune reported last week that the New Orleans Saints may ask the state to pay for a $350 million upgrade to the Superdome before the 2024 Super bowl. That’s a huge taxpayer commitment for a state that can’t even fund education at all levels and basic healthcare for hundreds of thousands of its citizens. So how should any upgrade be paid for?

Is Louisiana Governor John Bel Edwards being fair or is he "over the top", scaring seniors with potential "kick-you-out-of-nursing-homes" letters as a result of the budget standoff with the Republican House of Representatives? And why scare seniors, Governor Edwards, have you sent out contract-reduction letters to the Saints and the Pelicans?

I will admit that I am no different from you when it comes to an opinion on who the Saints should draft when the 2018 NFL Draft kicks off on Thursday night. All things being equal, I would pick a pass rusher or a tight end. Options will be available at both positions when the Saints are on the clock at No. 27 in the first round. However, the players still available at those positions might not necessarily be the best overall player left on the board.

As I readied for my Facebook Live discussion with Kathy Finn, the author of the unauthorized biography of the life of Tom Benson, many questions jammed through my mind, that i wanted to know the answers to and which i suspected, our audience would also.

Just who was Tom Benson? How did he become a billionaire and one of the richest persons in the United States? Why did he purchase the New Orleans Saints? The New Orleans Pelicans? What qualities did he possess that launched his remarkable success, coming from such a humble background? Given Benson's reported lack of knowledge about football, how did he fit in with the other NFL owners?

Ever since Tom Benson passed away last week, the interest in Benson the businessman, Benson, the family man, Benson the billionaire, Benson the New Orleans philanthropist, has become of significant interest to many.